Who should attend: Photographers who hope to publish their projects, or have recently done so.

As personal photographic projects come to completion, producing a publication can be an invaluable means to share the work with a broader audience.

Whether your book is published by a trade publisher, a small press, or you elect to publish your work yourself your publication date is just the beginning of the journey for your book and much of the market efforts will likely will fall to you. There are avenues for exposure within national press read by the photobook community and the broader public, based on the subject of your project. If you wish for your book to function as an path to new audiences via additional platforms, targeted research and presentation formats must be championed such as exhibitions with related educational programing can extend awareness and attention to the book throughout the tour of the show. From examining existing and desired audiences to the possibility of exhibitions this workshop will broaden perspectives and methods that aid in securing exposure for your book and your work.

Tuition for this two-day workshop is $500 and includes lunch and light refreshments for both days.DDiscount available for currently enrolled students and Aperture members at the $250+ level.

“Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation are pleased to announce the 2015 edition of The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, celebrating the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography.

The First PhotoBook Prize of $10,000 will be awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s) whose first photobook is judged to be best of the year. The PhotoBook of the Year Prize will be awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s), and publisher responsible, for the photobook judged to be the best of the year.

The Photography Catalogue of the Year Prize will be awarded to the publication, publisher, and/or organizing institution(s) responsible for the exhibition catalogue or museum publication judged to be the best of the year.

Thirty-five shortlisted entries in total will be exhibited and the award winners will be announced at Paris Photo, November 12-15, 2015.

Entry Fees

First PhotoBook early bird discount: $30 $20 per book.

PhotoBook of the Year early bird discount: $60 $50 for first entry from a given publisher, $30 $25 for each subsequent entry from the same publisher.

Photography Catalogue of the Year early bird discount: $60 $50 for first entry from a given publisher, $30 $25 for each subsequent entry from the same publisher.”

“In July 2015, Aperture Foundation will host its second open-submission exhibition for which all photographers are eligible. The theme for this year’s Summer Open is Black Mirror, and it will be curated by Michael Famighetti, editor of Aperture magazine.

Do we live in a world wilder than science fiction? The 2015 Aperture Summer Open borrows its title from the British television series Black Mirror, which imagines a dystopian near-future—a Twilight Zone for the age of the smartphone. The name Black Mirror refers to the omnipresent screens through which our lives are mediated today, and the show depicts a society in which technology ominously defines and shapes our relationships and each facet of daily life.

We’re more than thirty years beyond Orwell’s imagined 1984, and yet we continue to live in a moment of anxiety about what the future holds. Aperture’s Summer Open asks contributors to consider the future and the idea that we inhabit a world that is stranger, and in some ways more frightening, than that predicted by the authors of science fiction. What does it mean when our current reality echoes what were once outlandish fictional narratives? As today becomes tomorrow, what might the future look like in photographs? We seek a wide range of submissions, representing diverse subjects and approaches to photography, that are in some way engaged with questions about what the world has become and is becoming.”

“The purpose of the Aperture Portfolio Prize is to identify trends in contemporary photography and highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition. When choosing the first-prize winner and runners-up, Aperture’s editorial and curatorial staff look for innovative bodies of work that haven’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues.

Portfolio Prize – GuidelinesFirst prize is $3,000 and an exhibition at Aperture Gallery. The first-prize winner and up to five runners-up will be featured on Aperture’s website, accompanied by a brief statement written by Aperture staff. All winners are announced in the foundation’s e-newsletter, which reaches fifty thousand subscribers across the globe, including curators, critics, and members of the photography community. Winners will also have the opportunity to participate in the Aperture Foundation limited-edition print program.

Is a theme or topic carried throughout the portfolio in a consistent manner?

Do the individual images have strong composition and strong use of color or tone?

What technical and presentation choices has the photographer made, and are they appropriate for the work? For example, is there a clear reason for using sepia-toned black-and-white versus a digitally enhanced palette?

Does the body of work take an innovative or unique approach to the subject matter?”

“The purpose of the Aperture Portfolio Prize is to identify trends in contemporary photography and highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition. When choosing the first-prize winner and runners-up, Aperture’s editorial and curatorial staff look for innovative bodies of work that haven’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues. Previous winners and runners-up include Michal Chelbin, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Alexander Gronsky, Sarah Palmer, Bryan Schutmaat, and Jordan Tate, among others.

First prize is $3,000 and an exhibition at Aperture Gallery. The first-prize winner and up to five runners-up will be featured on Aperture’s website, where their images will be accompanied by a brief statement written by Aperture staff. All winners are announced in the foundation’s e-newsletter, which reaches forty thousand subscribers across the globe, including curators, critics, and members of the photography community. Winners will also have the opportunity to offer their prints via the Aperture Foundation limited-edition print program.”

Submission Guidelines$75 entry fee includes one annual individual membership in Aperture’s new membership program and covers entrance into the 2014 Portfolio Prize competition and the new, annual Summer Open exhibition. If you are already a member, there is no additional fee to enter. To receive a discount code that will waive the entry fee, contact membership@aperture.org.

To enter, go to callforentry.org; once you are registered (free), you will be asked to provide the following:

Four-digit Aperture membership ID number

Statement of up to 250 words about your work

Résumé/CV

15 images with title/caption information

If you are already a member, to receive your membership ID number, along with a discount code that will waive the entry fee, contact membership@aperture.org. New members, please enter ’0000′ when asked for your membership ID number.

Artists may submit up to two separate portfolios of 15 images each. A separate CAFÉ profile and application, filed under the same name and contact information, is required for each entry. A $25 fee must be paid for each additional entry. To receive a discount code adjusting the entry fee for second portfolios, please contact apertureprize@aperture.org.

Competition Criteria
When examining competition entries, Aperture’s editors and curatorial staff will consider the following criteria:

Is the work new, e.g., created in the last five years?

Is a theme or topic carried throughout the portfolio in a consistent manner?

Are the individual images strong compositionally and in their use of color or tone?

What technical and presentation choices has the photographer made, and are they appropriate for the work? For example, is there a clear reason for using sepia-toned black and white versus a digitally enhanced palette?

Does the body of work take an innovative or unique approach to the subject matter?”

“Aperture Foundation and the photography program at the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design are pleased to present a conversation between artist Taryn Simon and Lisa Hostetler, McEvoy Family Curator of Photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Writing on Simon’s work, Hostetler has observed: “By highlighting the precarious and often unreliable seams between photographic imagery, textual material, and definitive knowledge, Simon’s art draws attention to habits of inference and judgment . . . . While her seductively beautiful photographs attract the eye, the accompanying texts disclose unexpected—sometimes shocking—details about the subject of the picture. Given a contemporary world rife with images and information, her work speaks to issues that affect us all.'”

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street
New York, New York [map]

“The PhotoBook Review issue 003 is now available! Included in this issue is the announcement of the shortlisted books for the first Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. Issue 003, guest edited by Joan Fontcuberta, also includes a profile of Yolanda Cuomo (who designed Diane Arbus’s Revelations, among other noteworthy publications), an interview with Dutch photographer Rob Hornstra, a feature on the Argentine-publishers behind La Azotea, and reviews of over ten new photobooks from 2011 and 2012.”

“While James Casebere‘s earlier bodies of work focused on American mythologies such as the genre of the western and suburban home, in the early 1990s, he turned his attention to institutional buildings. In more recent years, his subject matter focused on various institutional spaces and the relationship between social control, social structure, and the mythologies that surround particular institutions, as well as the broader implications of dominant systems such as commerce, labor, religion, and law.

In 2001, Sean Kelly Gallery presented an exhibition of Casebere’s works from 1999 to the present, including those inspired by the indigenous architecture of the Caribbean Island of Nevis, traditional Japanese architecture, and an imagined gallery space. This exhibition also featured a now well-known body of work inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s utopian Monticello. In the following years he has continued to investigate a wide range of iconic architectural spaces, resulting in increasingly sophisticated layers of interpretation. Two photographs from his most recent series, Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY), were featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial.”

“Aperture Foundation is pleased to announce the exhibition, The Suffering of Light: Thirty Years of Images, coinciding with Alex Webb’s recently published monograph of the same title.

Recognized as a pioneer of American color photography, since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense color and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism, and fine art, but as Webb notes, ‘To me, it all is photography. You have to go out and explore the world with a camera.’

Webb’s ability to distill gesture, color, and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony, and humor. Featuring key works alongside previously unpublished photographs, The Suffering of Light provides the most thorough examination to date of this modern master’s prolific, thirty-year career.”

The exhibition will be on view until January, 19, 2012

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, New York [map]
(212) 505-5555

“Ten years post-9/11, at a time when we are more overloaded with information than ever but cannot access it in a coherent manner, Aperture will create a visual café for collective social engagement with the question: What Matter’s Now? and turn it into an evolving exhibition space. During a two-week period, starting today, Aperture will turn itself “inside out,” letting participants engage in the editorial process of weighing questions, ideas, and images, and proposing conceptual and curatorial solutions. Both invited guests and gallery visitors will be asked to participate. The exhibition What Matters Now? Proposals for a New Front Page will combine the crowd sourcing of images and ideas with the curatorial engagement of six experienced individuals, each hosting a table and a conversation within the space, where on corresponding walls each group will present its proposals for the contents of a ‘New Front Page’. Hosts include a variety of visual image specialists: Wafaa Bilal, Melissa Harris, Stephen Mayes, Joel Meyerowitz, Fred Ritchin (who conceptualized this project) and Deborah Willis.

Your ideas are crucial to the success of this project.Submit your suggestions, imagery, multimedia projects and websites. If you would like your submission to be directed towards a particular host, table, or discussion tag, please identify that in your message.”